Story: Drownings (part seven)

Drownings

(part seven)

For good or ill, at this moment her phone rang. She put it on speaker. “Julia.”

“Julia?” the man asked anyway.

“Is this Mr. Herberston?”

“Are you some sort of reporter?”

Her eyes said to McAlley, he’s been checking. “Mr. Herbertson, I’m enquiring after the job. The one asking for business skills.”

“My wife had a different impression.” Cold.

“O-oh.” Faia allowed him a second’s stewing, lowered her voice as before. “But I didn’t lie. What I promised was quite the truth. What you’ll choose to do about it…”

“As to jobs, I don’t know what they’ve got open. Not my area. But if you’ll come see me at my office.”

“Bell Court?”

“Why do you say that? I believe you are a reporter.”

McAlley, unable to resist, leaned to the phone. “Mr. Herbertson, this is Bert Swan. I am the very fellow my colleague refers to. Will you text back to this number a place you’d care to meet us? Name your hour, and we shall arrive.”

A long silence. “It can’t be today.”

“Your choice,” said Faia, ringing him off.

“We know what he’ll do, just what he’s done already. It won’t occur to him to call Mrs. Blaney, but he’ll surely be calling about. Who is Bert Swan? Hasn’t got the advantage of knowing how I spell my nom de guerre.”

“McAlley, master of illusion. He’ll meet, though. If he’s got any resources, have himself shadowed by a security officer, get our pictures.”

By consent they made for Bell Court. Two were on the map: an apartment house a few streets off, and a cul-de-sac for wealthier earners, in a town abutting city limits. Faia tried Herbertson, and found Joanel Herbertson, 816 Seventrees Circle, Brandleton.

“Brandleton folk. We’ll suppose him a director or such. If Joanel is female, she may be the wife.”

“He would keep his property in her name,” Faia said. “I believe that very well.”

They took public transport to the poor Bell Court. A brave lavender ombre colored a long garage wall, doors and all…

A girl’s face turned horizonward (with, on this street, no horizon); behind her, smaller scenes of her era, the time of the drowned, the timbered shops, the carts and cobblestones—a city mural to extend the reach of the Old Parish project.

“Arts and crafts radicans,” McAlley said.

7

Drownings

Drownings (part eight)

(2021, Stephanie Foster)